Ambedkar and After: the Dalit Movement in India As 145 the Bringer of a Total New World

142 sn Eleanor Zelliot was his home from childhood until he built a bungalow named Rajgriha in a middle-class area of Bombay in 1935. 7. The full poem has been translated from Marathi in my article. See Zelliot (1966). 8. Try as he would, Ambedkar did not succeed in gathering all untouchable castes of Maharashtra under his banner. Chambhars (now preferring Chamarkar as their name) and Maiangs did not convert to Buddhism and do not for the most part join in these Dalit demonstrations. Some refuse to use the word 'Dalit' to describe themselves. Generally, in each area, one caste will adopt Ambedkar as 7 its own and the other untouchable castes will act in opposition. 9. Mahad was the site of the burning of those parts of the classic law, the Manusmrttt, which legitimised in 1927 the restrictions placed on untouchables Ambedkar and After: and the punishments allotted them if they transgressed. On 25 December 1998, Dalit women's organisations of Maharashtra proceeded to Mahad to The Dalit Movement in India burn those parts of the ManusmriLi which degraded the role and nature of women. It was the anniversary of the historic Mahad conference which was seen as the first great event in the Ambedkar movement. The Kalaram Temple in Nashik was the site of a temple satyagraha which lasted from 1930 to 1955 and was unsuccessful in securing any religious rights. Then, at a conference held near Nashik, Dr Ambedkar announced he would Gail Omvedt convert and not die a Hindu. The sun of self-respect has burst into flame— let it burn up these castes! Smash, break, destroy these walls of hatred. Crush to smithereens this eons-old school of blindness, Rise, 0 people!1 Turning their backs to the sun, they journeyed through centuries. Now, now we must refuse to become pilgrims of darkness. That one, our father, carrying, carrying the darkness is now bent; Now, now we must lift that burden from his back. Our blood was spilled for this glorious city And what we got was the right to eat stones. Now, now we must explode that building which kisses the sky! After a thousand years we were blessed with a sunflower-giving fakir; Now, now we must, like sunflowers, turn our faces to the sun.2 Dalit poetry frequently uses the sun as the imagery for the movement led by Dr B.R. Ambedkar, often seeing him as the sun and 144 eo Gail Omvedt Ambedkar and After: The Dalit Movement in India as 145 the bringer of a total new world. In his lifetime, Babasaheb Ambedkar did indeed give birth to a movement that encom- movement has been reformist. It has mobilised along caste lines passed all the needs of human society—economic, social, cultural, but made only half-hearted efforts to destroy caste; it has attempted political and spiritual. He sought a total transformation and in and achieved some real though limited societal changes, with gains doing so, attempted to make use of the best scholarship, the great- especially for the educated sections among Dalits, but it has failed est insights of his time. Yet, like other social movements, the 'post- to transform the society sufficiently to raise the general mass out Ambedkar Dalit movement'—a term many use for the Dalit move- of what is still among the most excruciating poverty in the world. ment in independent India—has today come under an eclipse. It Though this movement has carried forward the challenge of em- is floundering without a total vision. How did this happen? powerment and brought anti-caste issues into the political agenda, it still seems unable to become a decisive political force, leaving Dalits and other suppressed caste groups forced to bargain for Types of Social Movements concessions with the dominant political parties it characterises as 'Manuwadi', dominated by upper castes and the ideologies of Sociological theories distinguish social movements along two axes, Brahmanic Hinduism. The day promised by the 'new sun' seems whether they seek radical or limited change, and whether they focus still far away. on the entire society or on specific individuals. Alternative social To understand what has happened, we can begin looking at some movements see limited change among specific individuals, largely aspects of Dr Ambedkar's transformatory anti-caste movement. through remodelling lifestyles and behaviour (e.g., the hippie movement). Redemptive social movements try to change certain spheres of society (e.g., religious conversions). Reformist social movements attempt to change the entire society, but in limited Dr Ambedkar's Movement ways, while revolutionary social movements, finally, attempt radical change in the entire society (Macionis 1995). Babasaheb Ambedkar made his entry into the political and social In terms of this paradigm, the anti-caste movement, which life of India in the period immediately after the First World War began in the 19th centuiy under the inspiration ofjyotiba Phule and the Russian Revolution. It was an era marked by social and and was carried on in the 1920s by the non-Brahman movements political upheaval and the increasing hegemony of Marxist so- in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and then developed under the cialism in movements for social liberation. Though Ambedkar leadership of Dr Ambedkar, had characteristics of all four types of organised and led one of these movements as an autonomous social movements though at its best it was revolutionary in terms movement for Dalit liberation, rejecting the leadership and ideo- of society and redemptive in terms of individuals. In partial con- logical hegemony of non-Dalit socialists, he was influenced by text, the 'post-Ambedkar Dalit movement' has had revolutionary Marxism throughout. His own theory which begins from the heri- practice. It has provided alternative ways of living, at some points tage of indigenous radicalism and stands in the tradition of limited and at some points radical and all-encompassing, ranging Phule's revolutionary challenge can appropriately be compared from changes in behaviour such as giving up beef-eating to reli- to it. gious conversion. It has focused on changes in the entire society, Marxism was a totalistic and unified theory of change. The from radical revolutionary goals of abolishing caste oppression industrial working class, according to it, was both the most op- and economic exploitation to the limited goals of providing scope pressed class in society and at the same time the most capable of for members of Scheduled Castes to achieve social mobility. leading other social groups to revolution. This thesis was backed But, on the whole, looking at the 50 years since independence by a comprehensive analysis of the causes of social conflict and (though slightly over 40 years since the death of Ambedkar), this contradictions, of the underlying nature of society, and thence of the factors necessary for change. 146 »D Gail Omvedt Ambedkor and After: The Dalit Movement in India GS 147 During much of his social and political life, roughly from the Minorities itself which seemed to contain two rather disparate sec- late 1920s through the 1940s, Ambedkar accepted most of the tions, one advocating land nationalisation and state socialism and economic analyses of Marxism and even attempted to organise the other calling for separate village settlements for Dalits. The along these lines, creating a radical movement of Mahar and connection between the two was not clear. The problems of any Kunbi peasants against landlords, allying with communists in the 'dual systems theory' remained: seeing separate systems of class working class struggle. These were years in which the pages of and caste exploitation left unchallenged the mechanical Marxist Janata, Ambedkar's weekly, were filled with reports of the strug- assumptions of a class analysis and accepted the idea that 'class' gles of workers and peasants against 'capitalists and landlords' as system of exploitation of dalits was an economic issue while the well as the fights of Dalits against atrocities. Ambedkar did not 'caste' system of exploitation was a cultural and ideological (super- have much time for theoretical writing in this period of tumultu- structural) issue. The dual systems of'capitalism' and 'Brahman- ous organising, but his programmes and speeches indicate that ism' provided useful rhetoric and a rule-of-thumb for analysis, he accepted broadly the Marxist analysis of class struggle so far as but it left the question of the connection between the two systems economic issues were concerned. What this led to, though, was a completely unresolved. And if the other systems of oppression kind of dual systems theory which saw capitalism and Brahman- (for instance, 'patriarchy' and 'national oppression') were also ism (casteism) as separate systems of exploitation, one to be fought included, then such an approach simply would yield to an un- by class struggle and the other by caste struggle. As he put it in his wieldy amalgam of many disparate 'systems' of exploitation. In famous address to the Mahar railway workers at Mahad: other words, the dual systems theory could not give an integrated and holistic explanation. It reflected Ambedkar's initial grappling There are in my view two enemies which the workers of this country have with Marxism when he insisted that 'caste' be added to a class to deal with. The two enemies are Brahminism and Capitalism .... By approach (and even in that it should have priority) but did not Brahminism I do not mean the power, privileges and interests of the develop an overall alternative theory. Brahmins as a community. By Brahminism I mean the negation of the As a result of this and some disillusionment with communism spirit of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. In that sense, it is rampant in after the end of the Second World War, Ambedkar moved away all classes and is not confined to the Brahmins alone though they have from this analysis at the end of his life.

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